Fairfax County Park Authority Lifeguard Reviews

Pros

- Okay-ish hours - Flexible scheduling

Cons

- Pay is pretty bad for how certified you are - Management will leave you in the dark about pay raises for other staff with the same qualifications as you

Pros

You get to use the pool and other facilities freely.

Cons

You are overwhelmed with work and you don't get paid for overtime.

Pros

Opportunities for mobility and leadership positions if committed, well structured and organized.

Cons

Progression can take a long time because of the struct structures and policies. High turnover rate

Pros

-Pay is pretty good for the work you do, well above minimum wage -Free facility use (pool, gym, basketball courts, etc) -you can work year round since pools are indoors -the customers are some of the nicest people you'll ever encounter

Cons

Your experience will vary from facility to facility depending on the managers, this is specifically about the McLean rec center. -constantly staffed at the bare minimum, if even one person calls out of their shift you will be understaffed and struggling to make up the difference -to make things worst, management will assign unnecessary busy work even though you're at the bare minimum of lifeguards -Supposedly you have access to the facilities across the county but I found that if was hard to get into the ones you don't work at because your manager would have to contact them to let them know you work in the county. They should just issue employee cards or something similar -if you don't work consistently then your hours will be given to someone else -I found at my rec center specifically that managers use "group punishment" techniques where if one person does something wrong, the entire lifeguard staff get penalized even though many of us are great workers -recently managers have adopted this mentality that lifeguards need to be doing something at all times. Even when you have 10 minutes down from the sitting in the chair, they'll find something for you to do -there is little differentiation between the high schoolers that work seasonally and the long time employees who have worked for years, you get treated the same unless... -you're one of the managers favorites in which case you get skip training and generally avoid all the menial tasks that everyone else gets stuck with -broken things take a lot of time to fix but this because the management at HQ isn't really slow about things

Pros

Always active, free to use facility once employed

Cons

It is stressful to watch over peoples lives, time consuming